A City Upon a Hill

Too often I find myself frustrated with young men (and it does seem to be mostly men), it often seems that they have no idea of things that have gone before. It also strikes me that they are much too given to teleological argument in history. Especially since the history of English (and American) resistance has been almost invariably a desire to go back to “the good old law”. Eventually, I cool off and remember how smart my dad got when I went to college, and even more so, work. But, I have long since decided that I tell the truth as I see it, if you don’t want it with the bark on, don’t deal with me.

This will go somewhat off topic, although it is as applicable to our faith as it is anything else, so if you’re reading it, it was because Jessica in her kind heart approved the digression.

In comments the other day Pancakes denigrated American exceptionalism with the catch phrases we always hear, and as always, it set me off, so let look at it a bit.

Firstly, American Exceptionalism is a bit of a misnomer, in reality it is transplanted British Exceptionalism. As Alexis de Tocqueville told us: “The American is the Englishman left to himself.” But in addition to that, the whole theory runs in a nearly straight line from King Alfred the Great through that meadow at Runnymede, through Henry VIII, through the first British Civil war and the Glorious Revolution, and didn’t split until what many call the Second British Civil War (that’s what is popularly called The American Revolution). That why I often say that American history started in 1776, until then it was just a facet of British history. In truth, hopes of a reconciliation didn’t die until the Hessian mercenaries landed, it never pays to use foreign troops in an internal Anglo-American dispute. And as Edmund Burke said on 22 March 1775

First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation, which still I hope respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles.

He was right. We should probably note that in the English Civil War many (especially New Englanders) went back to England to take up arms with their families. And for Parliament, most of the New England colonists were from what has come to be called the Eastern Association. And there have always been rumors a couple of the regicides were sheltered for the rest of their life in New England. Virginia was mostly settled by low church Anglicans, who also supported Parliament. In the Revolution, we see the same split, both in America and in England as well. This may well be the only time when Edmund Burke, William Pitt the Elder and Charles James Fox found themselves on the same side of anything, and it was the American side, opposed to the North Ministry. George the Third referred to it for the rest of his life as “my Presbyterian War”.

As a bit of aside, Geoffrey wondered last week why we conflate political terms into church politics, and this may well be the answer, we’ve been doing it since the English Civil war, maybe since Magna Charta, and maybe even longer.

The American Revolution pitted the same sides against each other as the Civil War had, even many of the same families.

Did you notice that I called Henry VIII a major waypoint in American history? I did that for a reason. Henry is amongst other things the man who turned England’s face away from Europe out into the world. This is the major effect of the English Reformation. When England has thought itself to be an adjunct of Europe, it has always demeaned itself, during the Norman occupation, during the Angevin Empire, and now as well. England (in the classical sense meaning Great Britain, actually) has at almost all other times, during the Anglo-Saxon age when England came close to establishing a Nordic confederacy before “1066 and all that”, and after the Reformation, when the Royal Navy, which Henry VIII established, came to rule the waves, everywhere, only giving up that rule for parity with the United States in 1921. The British Empire, especially the first empire is quite simply, a Tudor enterprise

I also think that the Protestant faith(s) themselves have contributed greatly to the spread of English values, with the emphasis on vocation and hard (and superb) work in any sphere being very pleasing to the Lord, especially as compared to the ascetic tradition of Catholicism.

I think it probably important to note that the industrialization of the United states was heavily underwritten by British firms and banks. Why? I’d say most likely because here, like there, the rule of law prevailed, even above the government. Their money, if their investment was wise, was safe. Some tin pot dictator was not going to steal it.

Daniel Hannan, in his latest book, speaks of that day in August of 1941 when Roosevelt walked (really he did) across the gangplank from USS Augusta to HMS Prince of Wales for Church parade, as the band of the Prince of Wales struck up the Stars and Stripes Forever. Churchill later exulted, and correctly, “The Same Language, The Same Hymns, the Same Ideals. The lesson for the day came from Joshua 1:

As I was with Moses, so I will be with you

I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee

Be strong and of good courage

I can’t remember for sure but I am quite sure that the final hymn that day was this:

After all the former First Sea Lord and the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy would have known that it is the official hymn of both navies. They also both knew on that foreboding Sunday morning that freedom had become a fugitive in the night, she existed almost no place where English was not spoken. From Brest through the Japanese home Islands, from the North Pole to Africa all was either communist, nazi, fascist or some other variant of totalitarianism. Freedom in the world is a gift from the English Speaking peoples, and none other, purchased at a very high price, in both blood and treasure.

On that day, and on many others they pledged themselves, and us to make the world safe for

Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.

And no, I didn’t quote Lincoln here, he borrowed the quote himself. It was originally written in 1384 by John Wycliffe. Such a phrase in the 14th century could not have been written in anything but English.

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16 thoughts on “A City Upon a Hill”

Mention of the origin of term “city upon a hill” declarative usage is due. When the start of the Great Migration ( Puritans 30,000) began in 1630 on the ship Arabella( I think it was ) , John Winthrop stated clearly what their Puritan mission was to be : “We shall be as a city on a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” Their effort was to establish the “True Church”. President Reagan also used the term in the sense that America should be the shining example of morality and democracy, a beacon to the world.

Re “American Exceptionalism” there ain’t a politician around that doesn’t sneak that phrase into almost every speech made esp those of the current president.

Yep, that’s where it came from. It’s an outstanding speech, and the meat of it is before that statement. It speaks very clearly of our covenant with God, and that is where our freedom comes from. I note that Kennedy also used it in his inaugural, it’s become both nonpartisan and non-sectarian over the years.

The guy right now is quite good at talking the talk, it’s too bad he can’t seem to learn to at least crawl the walk.

I have a way to employ 20 million people right quick. “If you sell it here, you gotta make it here.” This allows foreign investment and foreign profit but keeps the jobs here. With decent paychecks we become a consumer economy again and other people get employed making things for consumers to buy creating an upward spiral of prosperity.

Sorry Carl, I can’t afford $20 T shirts, which is what you get with that.

I have a better way, repeal every law passed since 1970, outlaw the income tax and get out of the way. You just can’t fool a real market, no matter what you legislate. And it would help a lot to enforce the fraud statutes as well.

Neo, I am still unsure how any of this vindicates American exceptionalism? I mean, as we pass from one century to another, one millennium to another, we would like to think that history itself is transformed as dramatically as the calendar. However, it rushes on, as it always did, with two forces racing toward the future, one splendidly uniformed, the other ragged but inspired.

Of course, there is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world, by teachers, writers, historians, anyone, is a judgment. The judgment that has been made is that this fact is important and all other facts, that are omitted, are not important. In that vein, many themes of great importance are missing from the orthodox histories that have dominated American culture. The consequence of these omissions has been that we not only have a distorted view of the past, but, more important, we have been mislead about the present.

I have no illusions about this nor about objectivity, if that means avoiding a point of view, concerning those omissions. I am forced to choose a side, out of a limitless number of facts, of what to present, omit, etc. And all of those judgments reflect my position. And I do not care to regurgitate the orthodox histories of our nation with so many neglected groups missing from them. I don’t care to tell the story of wars through generals and diplomats, it has been done to death, but from the viewpoint of the soldier or Marine, the parents of those drafted, and even of the enemy.

But when it is pretended that, as in the Preamble, it is “we the people” who wrote that document, rather than the fifty-five privileged white males whose class interest required a strong central government. That use of government for class purposes, to serve the needs of the wealthy and powerful, has continued to this day. It is disguised in language that suggests all of us—rich and poor and middle class—have a common interest. So, when the president declares that the economy is sound he will not acknowledge that it is not sound for 60 million Americans. Even labels are given to history which reflect the well-being of one class and ignore the rest. We have, in 1920s Harlem, housewives desperate for food and money, their husbands unemployed, their children starving, and they are unable to pay the rent–all this in a period known as the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties. You so many of those race riots in a period called the Progressive Era. You have something known as national interest or national security that was used as a justification for Truman’s police action in Korea that resulted in millions dead, that Johnson and Nixon used for carrying out a war in Indochina that resulted in at least 3 million dead, that allowed Reagan to invade Grenada, that allowed Bush to attack Panama and then Iraq, and Clinton to bomb Iraq again and again, and that allowed Bush II to invade Iraq for a second time on a completely trumped up pretext. Is there a national interest when a few people decide on war, and large numbers of others–here and abroad–are killed or crippled as a result of such a decision?

Moreover, where are the nonwhite people in our orthodox histories? Yes, Indians were there, and then gone. Black people were there when slaves, then freed and then invisible. For instance, every second grader learns about the rather benign Louisiana Purchase that allowed for such a peaceful expansion of the US. But that involved, though never talked about, the violent expulsion of Indians, accompanied by unspeakable atrocities, from every square mile of the continent, until there was nothing to do with them but herd them into reservations.

It appears to me to be a white man’s history. Just as much as American exceptionalism is nothing but a certain group’s spin on particular historical events. And it reminds me of what Josephine Baker said speaking of the race riots in East St Louis: “The very idea of America makes me shake and tremble and gives me nightmares.” Neo, I don’t deny you your interpretation of history, but don’t pretend that it is the only interpretation and beyond contestation.

The world of men is a violent place always has been will be until the 2d coming. I’m not so much interpreting history here as telling you that part of it which has been suppressed for political purposes.

So, if I understand you, you’re saying that America and Nazi Germany are equivalent? I say any that would say so are morally blind. There is no bigger curse in the world than the man who will not judge between good and evil.

Yes, that story needs to be told as well. But not as a justification of sorts for what was inflicted on the “savage” Indians. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

History is a race in which we can all choose to participate, or just to watch. But we should know that our choice will help determine the outcome. I wish we could wipe out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and we could then think of all children everywhere as our own. I wonder how the foreign policies of the US would look then? We could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.

America and Nazi Germany are similar in certain respects, yes (ironically, America is currently supporting a pro-fascist government in Ukraine). How does that make me morally blind? If anything, I would think being able to admit that would make me the opposite of morally blind. I don’t buy blindly into nationalist fervor and all that rhetoric blowing. Because I know the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudice against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth’s wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. But there is also a bubbling change beneath the surface of obedience: a growing revulsion against the endless wars; insistence of women all over the world that they will no longer tolerate abuse and subordination. There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of color. We see the educational system finally starting to make strides, a burgeoning new literature, alternative radio stations, a wealth of documentary films outside the mainstream, even Hollywood itself and sometimes television compelled to recognize the growing multiracial character of the nation. We have, in a country dominated by corporate wealth and military power and two antiquated political parties, a recently developed culture challenging the present, demanding a new future. And that gives me hope, I suppose.

You don’t need the scare quotes around savage, the Indians were plenty savage. They had the right to fight, they took it, they lost. Same story everywhere. The Celts took Britain, lost it to the Germanic people, sometimes lost and sometimes won against the Vikings and finally lost it to the Norman French. Move along , nothing to see here. If you want to take it back in history, you get to Cain, it’s not very useful.

Would you be surprised that in some ways, I agree with you about national boundaries? After all, passports were a progressive invention. There’s a caveat though, you’re on your own, work or die, I not going to support you, I’m not going to provide child-care or schooling, or anything else we pay for as a state, unless you contribute. Other than basic law enforcement, and I’ll bet that doesn’t mean what you think it does. Police are not there to protect you, that’s your job. Police exist to catch lawbreakers and punish them in the name of the state.

You want to talk about the children of Hiroshima, yep it’s a tragedy. How about the unborn babies of Nanking aborted by the Japanese army during bayonet practice? Should somebody have done something about that? How about the million + Japanese civilians saved from dying during the invasion, either by Allied arms, starvation or fire? Remember, while we were taking commercial actions against Japanese militarism there would have been no Hiroshima without Pearl Harbor.

If you would call Imperial Japan and the United States moral equivalents,.I have nothing left to say, because you are not worthy of anybody’s time. Life is not a spectator sport. Your responses matter, and ignoring something is a response.

I have no clue why we should back Ukraine either, they’re a more or less friendly country but, they are not an ally, let alone a military one. Then again Russia is decidedly a non friendly country showing signs of Imperialism, history would teach us that it would be wise to stop this trend soon, because later will will be very expensive. But mostly, it’s Europe’s problem, and 3 times was just about enough, saving them, they’re committing slow suicide anyway, via abortion and contraception.

But then again the US at this juncture, has become a completely impotent laughingstock anyway, because we elected a joke as CinC, and so we’ll have to try to pick up the pieces later. I do understand Chamberlain at Munich far better now though.

The Indians were, in some cases, an overly aggressive collection of peoples. That is true, and I am not trying to excuse their behavior in certain cases; rather I am insisting that the whole story should be told in its proper context with its consequences properly understood. This is not an issue of which culture is better or worse, so to speak, although my sympathies lie with the Indians, it is an issue of one culture re-writing history to fit its ends, and by re-writing I mean making all other cultures and peoples irrelevant, invisible, barbaric, or dead, all the while claiming moral and cultural superiority in the midst of asserting that their particular version of historical events is the *real* history and beyond contestation.

As for Hiroshima, that is just pure propaganda and you know it. Hiroshima was nothing but the start of the Cold War not the ending of World War II. I give you part of a guest post from a blogging friend:

By 1945, Japan’s entire military and industrial machine was grinding to a halt as the resources needed to wage war were all but eradicated. The navy and air force had been destroyed ship by ship, plane by plane, with no possibility of replacement. When, in the spring of 1945, the island nation’s lifeline to oil was severed, the war was over except for the fighting. By June, Gen. Curtis LeMay, in charge of the air attacks, was complaining that after months of terrible firebombing, there was nothing left of Japanese cities for his bombers but “garbage can targets”. By July, US planes could fly over Japan without resistance and bomb as much and as long as they pleased. Japan could no longer defend itself.{6}

After the war, the world learned what US leaders had known by early 1945: Japan was militarily defeated long before Hiroshima. It had been trying for months, if not for years, to surrender; and the US had consistently ignored these overtures. A May 5 cable, intercepted and decoded by the US, dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese were eager to sue for peace. Sent to Berlin by the German ambassador in Tokyo, after he talked to a ranking Japanese naval officer, it read:
Since the situation is clearly recognized to be hopeless, large sections of the Japanese armed forces would not regard with disfavor an American request for capitulation even if the terms were hard.{7}

As far as is known, Washington did nothing to pursue this opening. Later that month, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson almost capriciously dismissed three separate high-level recommendations from within the Truman administration (Roosevelt had just died) to activate peace negotiations. The proposals advocated signaling Japan that the US was willing to consider the all-important retention of the emperor system; i.e., the US would not insist upon “unconditional surrender”.{8}

Stimson, like other high US officials, did not really care in principle whether or not the emperor was retained. The term “unconditional surrender” was always a propaganda measure; wars are always ended with some kind of conditions. To some extent the insistence was a domestic consideration — not wanting to appear to “appease” the Japanese. More important, however, it reflected a desire that the Japanese not surrender before the bomb could be used. One of the few people who had been aware of the Manhattan Project from the beginning, Stimson had come to think of it as his bomb — “my secret”, as he called it in his diary.{9} On June 6, he told President Truman he was “fearful” that before the A-bombs were ready to be delivered, the Air Force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon “would not have a fair background to show its strength”.{10} In his later memoirs, Stimson admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb”.{11}

And to be successful, that effort could have been minimal. In July, before the leaders of the US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met at Potsdam, the Japanese government sent several radio messages to its ambassador, Naotake Sato, in Moscow, asking him to request Soviet help in mediating a peace settlement. “His Majesty is extremely anxious to terminate the war as soon as possible”, said one communication. “Should, however, the United States and Great Britain insist on unconditional surrender, Japan would be forced to fight to the bitter end.”{12}

On July 25, while the Potsdam meeting was taking place, Japan instructed Sato to keep meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Molotov to impress the Russians “with the sincerity of our desire to end the war [and] have them understand that we are trying to end hostilities by asking for very reasonable terms in order to secure and maintain our national existence and honor” (a reference to retention of Emperor Hirohito).{13}

Having broken the Japanese code years earlier, Washington did not have to wait to be informed by the Soviets of these peace overtures; it knew immediately, and did nothing. Indeed, the National Archives in Washington contains US government documents reporting similarly ill-fated Japanese peace overtures as far back as 1943.{14}

Thus, it was with full knowledge that Japan was frantically trying to end the war, that President Truman and his hardline Secretary of State, James Byrnes, included the term “unconditional surrender” in the July 26 Potsdam Declaration. This “final warning” and expression of surrender terms to Japan was in any case a charade. The day before it was issued, Harry Truman had approved the order to release a 15 kiloton atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima.{15}

Many US military officials were less than enthusiastic about the demand for unconditional surrender or use of the atomic bomb. At the time of Potsdam, Gen. Hap Arnold asserted that conventional bombing could end the war. Adm. Ernest King believed a naval blockade alone would starve the Japanese into submission. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, convinced that retaining the emperor was vital to an orderly transition to peace, was appalled at the demand for unconditional surrender. Adm. William Leahy concurred. Refusal to keep the emperor “would result only in making the Japanese desperate and thereby increase our casualty lists,” he argued, adding that a nearly defeated Japan might stop fighting if unconditional surrender were dropped as a demand. At a loss for a military explanation for use of the bomb, Leahy believed that the decision “was clearly a political one”, reached perhaps “because of the vast sums that had been spent on the project”.{16} Finally, we have Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s account of a conversation with Stimson in which he told the secretary of war that:

Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. … I thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face”. The secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude, almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions.{17}

If, as appears to be the case, the US decision to drop the A-bombs was based on neither the pursuit of the earliest possible peace nor it being the only way to avoid a land invasion, we must look elsewhere for the explanation.

It has been asserted that dropping of the atomic bombs was not so much the last military act of the Second World War as the first act of the Cold War. Although Japan was targeted, theweapons were aimed straight to the red heart of the USSR. For more than 70 years, the determining element of US foreign policy, virtually its sine qua non, has been “the communist factor”. World War II and a battlefield alliance with the Soviet Union did not bring about an ideological change in the anti-communists who owned and ran America. It merely provided a partial breather in a struggle that had begun with the US invasion of Russia in 1918.{18} It is hardly surprising then, that 25 years later, as the Soviets were sustaining the highest casualties of any nation in World War II, the US systematically kept them in the dark about the A-bomb project, while sharing information with the British.
According to Manhattan Project scientist Leo Szilard, Secretary of State Byrnes had said that the bomb’s biggest benefit was not its effect on Japan but its power to “make Russia more manageable in Europe”.{19}

General Leslie Groves, Director of the Manhattan Project, testified in 1954: “There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of this Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and that the Project was conducted on that basis.”{20}

The United States was thinking post-war. A Venezuelan diplomat reported to his government after a May 1945 meeting that Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller “communicated to us the anxiety of the United States Government about the Russian attitude”. US officials, he said, were “beginning to speak of Communism as they once spoke of Nazism and are invoking continental solidarity and hemispheric defense against it”.{21}

Churchill, who had known about the weapon before Truman, understood its use: “Here then was a speedy end to the Second World War,” he said about the bomb, and added, thinking of Russian advances into Europe, “and perhaps to much else besides. … We now had something in our hands which would redress the balance with the Russians.”{22}
Referring to the immediate aftermath of Nagasaki, Stimson wrote of what came to be known as “atomic diplomacy”:

In the State Department there developed a tendency to think of the bomb as a diplomatic weapon. Outraged by constant evidence of Russian perfidy, some of the men in charge of foreign policy were eager to carry the bomb for a while as their ace-in-the-hole. … American statesmen were eager for their country to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip.{23}
“The psychological effect on Stalin [of the bombs] was twofold,” observed historian Charles L. Mee, Jr. “The Americans had not only used a doomsday machine; they had used it when, as Stalin knew, it was not militarily necessary. It was this last chilling fact that doubtless made the greatest impression on the Russians.”{24}
After the Enola Gay released its cargo on Hiroshima on August 6, common sense — common decency wouldn’t apply here — would have dictated a pause long enough to allow Japanese officials to travel to the city, confirm the extent of the destruction, and respond before the US dropped a second bomb.
At 11 o’clock in the morning of August 9, Prime Minister Kintaro Suzuki addressed the Japanese Cabinet: “Under the present circumstances I have concluded that our only alternative is to accept the Potsdam Proclamation and terminate the war.” Moments later, the second bomb fell on Nagasaki.{25} Some hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians died in the two attacks; many more suffered terrible injury and permanent genetic damage.

After the war, His Majesty the Emperor still sat on his throne, and the gentlemen who ran the United States had absolutely no problem with this. They never had.
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946 concluded:
It seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.{26}

It has been argued, to the present day, that it wouldn’t have mattered if the United States had responded to the Japanese peace overtures because the emperor was merely a puppet of the military, and the military would never have surrendered without the use of the A-bombs. However, “the emperor as puppet” thesis was a creation out of whole cloth by General MacArthur, the military governor of Japan, to justify his personal wish that the emperor not be tried as a war criminal along with many other Japanese officials.{27}
In any event, this does not, and can not, excuse the United States government for not at least trying what was, from humanity’s point of view, the clearly preferable option, replying seriously to the Japanese peace overtures. No matter how much power the military leaders had, the civil forces plainly had the power to put forth the overtures and their position could only have been enhanced by a positive American response.

I will only add to this why drop the bomb on civilian targets of very little strategic or military import?

Neo, I don’t know why you continually try to insult me by calling me “morally blind” and “not worthy of anybody’s time” and ignorant “of things that have gone before.” merely because I disagree with you. I think you should reflect upon your own words: “I have long since decided that I tell the truth as I see it” Yes, as you see it. And I must do the same, no? What we learn about the past does not give us absolute truth about the past or about the present, but it should cause us to look deeper than the glib statements made by political leaders and the “experts” quoted in the press.

Lastly, seeing as I am weary of being insulted, I will take your advice and not deal with you.

Yes, of course, except that no one was all that sure it was going to work, or that if it did it would get the Japanese to surrender, it was starting to look a good bit like Masada with us cast as the Romans. BTY, I read the book your friend’s blog post was based on when I was in college, 40 years ago, it wasn’t persuasive then either. As I recall, it was thought to have come from 3-4 levels deep in the Japanese bureaucracy. Right up until the surrender notification we were doing our best to get the Soviets INTO the war. The hard part in all this is to make your decision on what was known on 1 August 1945, and nothing else, it’s a trap we all fall into, and more so here, because Truman and Attlee were both new at their jobs.

Was there concern about the Sovs after the war, Sure. These were experienced statesmen looking out for their countries. But they also had enough sense to finish one war before thinking about the next.

Why not, there were multi-thousand military stationed, there was a naval base, there was some industry. You didn’t want to drop it on Tokyo because you might so damage the government that it couldn’t surrender, nor did you want to drop it on Kyoto, which was a sacred site. Could we have starved the entire population? Presumably in a year. Our European armies were transhipping and were pretty darned sure they were going to take 20+% casualties killed in Japan. You don’t spend that kind of blood on a project you don’t need to do. And besides, everybody in uniform and out was war weary, and wanted it over, which may have been the real answer.

The megacorps and megabanks with their lackey politicians run America(rest of world as well). The right to vote is an illusion of democracy and working people have been disenfranchised from the political and economic possibilities of pursuit of happiness. Consequently mantras like “all power to the workers” sound inviting to me.

Your first sentence I don’t exactly disagree with. The problem is big government that has the power to grant favors, combined with big business and big labor that has the wherewithal to bribe beyond the means of anybody else. The answer is, I think, to shrink government back to what it is supposed to be doing, i.e. providing for the common defense and such.

Beyond that government should be nothing beyond the umpire making sure that the (basic, like fraud laws) are followed. We hit Greshams Law territory long ago, where bad law began driving out good law.

Unfortunately , all power to the workers, while it sounds good, always ends up just changing (maybe) the masters. Only a free market liberates. Government properly only holds the ring.

All your points seem part of a blend for positive change. I find myself pro union though. The bad guys have been successful in portraying unions as the bad guys but unions seem to be the only advocates for working class. If it were not for the union and wage guarantee my father (airplane landing gear mechanic) would have never been able to send me to college or own a home. Free market has built America no contesting that. But the megacorps and megabanks have sucked so much money out of the economy it is almost impossible for people to become entrepreneurs as part of the free market which is why I conclude working class and college degreed underemployed indicate economic disenfranchisement. I would offer that the megabanks and megacorps have more power than alleged sovereign nations and control the destinies of those nations and people. Any government power to initiate this or refrain from doing that evaporates.

One very much overlooked cause of the Great Depression is that workers did not earn enough to become consumers of their own production. If they’ve got everyone at $9 an hour how can prosperity rise and how can a consumer economy not collapse?

Actually I have no problem at all with unions, defined as an association of a firms employees. I have the same problems with the big unions that I have with big business-they inevitably lead to cronyism. And in a real sense, the leaders of those unions aren’t looking out for the workers anyway, they’re far to busy feathering their own nests, like any politician.

A union analogous to the employer, whether it’s Joe’s 5 and 10 or GE, is fine, it may even be a positive good. It’s the mega sized stuff, like the AFL-CIO versus Joe’s 5 and 10 that’s wrong. Particularly historically, they did some good things, but personally, I’d walk away from a job where I had to join one. Too much corruption.

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." J.R.R. Tolkien <br>“I come not from Heaven, but from Essex.” William Morris